A joint audit by the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association showed that the NBA took in $3.817 billion in basketball related income in 2010-11. That was up from $3.643 billion in 2009-2010. An increase of 4.6%.
NBA Would Have Had $4 Billion to Split Among 500 People in 2011-12
If the NBA increased its basketball related income by another 4.6% in 2011-12, then the league would have had $4 billion in basketball related income to split. With the NBA lockout having already eaten away a portion of this season, the NBA will not reach that figure, and each day of the lockout deprives the owners and players of even more revenue.
There are 30 teams in the NBA, and each team can have 15 players, so their are roughly 450 NBA players. Add the 30 owners and 450 players together, throw in David Stern and his staff and Billy Hunter and his staff and you've got roughly 500 people.
Why can't those 500 people figure out a way to divvy up the $4 billion in revenue the NBA would have taken in during the 2011-12 season? When the NFL locked out its players over the summer, all I heard was that the football owners and players should be able to divvy up $8 billion in revenue.
NFL was Able to Divvy Up $8 Billion Among 1,728 People Without Missing Games
There are 53 players on the 32 teams in the NFL. That's a total of 1,696 players, plus 32 owners, or 1,728 total players and owners. So even though the NFL had twice the revenue of the NBA, if we figure by total people involved, the NFL was actually divvying up less money per player and owner. And they were able to make a deal without missing any regular season games.
Players Need a Reality Check
The minimum salary in the NBA in 2010-11 was $473,604. The average American worker made $41,674 in 2010. It would take the average worker in America over 11 years to make what the lowest salaried player in the NBA made playing basketball for one season.
The average salary in the NBA in 2010-11 was $5.15 million. It would take the average American worker over 123 years to earn what the average player in the NBA makes playing one season of basketball.
Owners Need a Realty Check
The owners claimed to have collectively lost $300 million during the 2010-11 season. Their 43% share of the $3.817 billion in revenue the league took in amounted to $1.64 billion. The players have basically already agreed to a 50-50 revenue split.
Fifty percent of $4 billion is $2 billion, or $359 million more than the owners got in revenue in 2010-11. Even though the players have basically already agreed to give back what the owners claimed to have lost, the owners what more concessions.
What Needs to Happen
The players need to tell Billy Hunter and his staff, and the owners need to tell David Stern and his staff, that they both have to go into the same room and not come out until they have figured out a way to divvy up $4 billion dollars among 500 people. Is that really so hard? Then let's play some basketball!
I've been a fan of the NBA for over four decades now. Over the years I've enjoyed watching NBA greats like Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
If you don't think basketball is still big, Shaquille O'Neal made an appearance last night, Wednesday, November 16, 2011, at a bookstore in the town next to mine. Even before Shaq's appearance was over, the kids were showing me videos and pictures of Shaq that they and their friends had already posted on Facebook.
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